OAK VIEW : Human Skull, Bones Found on Hillside

A human skull, some leg, finger and rib bones and about five teeth were found on a steep Oak View hillside Monday after rescue crews arrived there to assist a driver who had plunged off California 33.

It may take weeks to identify a victim, said Deputy Coroner Jim Wingate, although officials believe the bones were from a 30- to 50-year-old woman and had been decomposing for more than a year.

Fire and ambulance crews found the skull 60 feet down the hillside about 6:30 a.m. Monday while rescuing a driver whose pickup truck plunged off the road on the southeast corner of the highway’s intersection with Creek Road. The driver was making a left turn from Creek Road onto California 33 when he was broadsided by another motorist and knocked 70 feet over the side of the road, said Norm Plott, spokesman for the Oak View Rescue Squad.

The unidentified driver of the pickup was taken to Ojai Community Hospital with a possible broken leg and pelvis. About 10 members of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department’s Search and Rescue Squad, four detectives and the coroner then spent several hours Monday afternoon searching the hillside for additional remains. They found rib and leg bones and the remnants of a leather shoe, said Lt. Joe Harwell of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Officials found no obvious signs of trauma or foul play, Harwell said.

“We’re looking into all the possible missing persons, but at this point we don’t have anything definite,” Harwell said.